The spacious and elegant modern building, in the heart of this middle-class suburb of Paris, is known as "the mosque of the converts".

Every year about 150 Muslim conversion ceremonies are performed in the snow-white structure of the Sahaba mosque in Creteil, with its intricate mosaics and a stunning 25-metre minaret, built in 2008 and a symbol of Islam's growing presence in France.

Among those who come here for Friday prayer are numerous young former Catholics, wearing the traditional Muslim prayer cap and long robe.

While the number of converts remains relatively small in France, yearly conversions to Islam have doubled in the past 25 years, experts say, presenting a growing challenge for France, where government and public attitudes toward Islam are awkward and sometimes hostile.

French anti-terrorism officials have been warning for years that converts represent a critical element of the terrorist threat in Europe, because they have Western passports and do not stand out.

In October, the French police conducted a series of antiterrorism raids across France, resulting in the arrests of 12 people, including at least three French citizens who had recently converted to Islam. Converts "often need to overdo it if they want to be accepted" as Muslims, and so veer into extremism more frequently than others, said Didier Leschi, who was in charge of religious issues at the Interior Ministry under former president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Many Muslims counter that they regularly face prejudice, and consider a 2010 law banning the full-face veil from public spaces and the growing concern with conversions as reflections of French intolerance.

Whatever the impact, there is little doubt conversions are growing more commonplace.

"The conversion phenomenon is significant and impressive, particularly since 2000," said Bernard Godard, who is in charge of religious issues at the Interior Ministry.

#2
The demand by domestic Muslims in both France + US, etc. for legal Sharia is consistent wid the historical agendas + precepts of French + International Socialism.

As in the US, what the Lefts have done for women + demographic or ethnic minorities, as per Welfare-Nanny Statehood where Left-beloved equalist "Universalism" = Selective
"Stratification" + "Special Issues", it can do for Law-abiding Muslims + Sharia.

The pro-Sharists will argue that Islam + Sharia law is the VERY ESSENCE/PROOF OF SELF-RELIANCE + ANTI-DEFICIT COST-EFFECTIVENESS DUE TO ITS BASE IN GOD'S LAW, THAT A SHARIA SYS WILL BE THE LEAST OR AMONG THE LEAST OF THE WORRIES + TRAVAILS OF US, WESTERN BIG GOVTS + WELFARE-NANNY STATISM.

#3
OOOOPPPSIES, forgot WAFF > ARABS ARE FLOODING GREECE IN LARGE NUMBERS | GREECE SWAMPED BY BY ILLEGALS FROM NORTH AFRICA, MIDDLE EAST [+ South, Central Asia includ AFPAK], in
"devastating wave" according to Greece/Athens Ambassador to the US Christos P. Panagopoulos.

Meanwhile, Muslim Azerbaijan is complaining about SYRIAN ARMENIANS being resettled in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region???

#2
We know this because Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently said as much:

If we do decide that a particular standard is so high that a woman couldnt make it, the burden is now on the service to come back and explain to the secretary, why is it that high? Does it really have to be that high?

The Army has had separate but equal [I love using that term] female height and weight standards, as well as physical fitness standards for decades.

How about a discussion centered around SICK CALL? Who goes on SICK CALL by an alarmingly high percentage? Yep, here she comes, absent from PT, late for formation, with a sick slip and profile in her hand..."but sergeant my ****** hurts".

#4
Polling that shows Americans favor women in combat by a 2-to-1 margin is evidence only of the power of misinformation.

The vast majority who've never served nor understand the sociology of military life. I'm sure they slept at a Holiday Inn though.

There is no math in nature. Math is a manmade concept developed first for accounting and then trying to explain the world around them. Nature doesn't care. It doesn't compute orbits or planets or the number of electrons around an atom. It just is. Man counts, categorizes, analyzes. Nature does, however, do chemistry. There's no equal in water, but it still takes two hydrogen and one oxygen to make it. The unstable combinations work themselves out 'naturally', and yet the world and universe go on. When you try to force stuff together that isn't intended to be, you end up with exceedingly short half lifes or a release of energy that leaves the elements diminished if not altered beyond their original physics.

#6
If you are looking for equality then you have to consider the stature-impaired, the aged and arthritic, and the disabled also. EEO guidelines? The military is uniquely different and demanding in many of its missions. The mission should drive decisions and not social engineering.

It would seem that for some special ops combat outfits, women would have difficulty with the missions. The practicality of it is that women who end up serving in combat zones have ended up in combat.

To make life more fair and allow both sexes to choose would be, as military sociologist Charles Moskos once put it, the end of an effective military force.

Maybe that is the entire point with these left-wing PC-driven statists who believe in What if you called a war and no one showed up. Or everyone showed up.

#8
I'm heading towards 74 in a couple of days. I've got a knee I can't trust--won't take much weight. Strength, speed, and stamina have declined with age. Had surgeries on my retinas but vision is nearly normal with correction. I can still shoot reasonably well should the need arise. With some of these problems, I'd be a danger to my fellow soldiers and would not want to put them in harm's way for equality purposes. You cannot legislate equality. As P2K said, nature does not recognize equality.

#11
When I scuttling off to places like Angola, Tanzania, and Uganda and ducking in and out of Syria, I kept my webgear and my personal side arm in my quarters.
Ex wife number one said the good old standard issue combat dressing looked like a giant kotex. When I came back from Angola with a hole in my side and a desire to sleep in trees, the first ex said a tampon was probably a better dressing. She was a real Army wife and probably would have signed up and gone to war with me if she could have. Her only problem was she was 5-2 and about 100 lbs sopping wet and had a hard time controlling our Bassett Hound.
I don't think women in combat are a good idea given the vulnerability of a woman taking a leak or having to take care of personal hygiene. I did date an IDF major with a big bayonet scar on her back from some unfortunate occurrance at an IDF field hospital in the Golan Heights and she was not in favor of it either. She said killing strange men was contrary to a woman's nature, killing a husband or boyfriend was understandable and part of the course of life...

#13
Yes, good point and good field expedient. Tegaderm and Alegra products offer a wide variety of coverings. Newer coverings have been developed that fit into the entry wound and lock-out air. Exit wounds are some of the worst threats. Nearly gone are the days of using the cellophane from a pack of Lucky Strikes as taught in the 1960's.

#14
Whahahaha.... JohnQC. I have a couple of Marine fiends who "wax philosophical" as well. Never wanted to be a Marine, but I sure enjoy the friendships.

All I have to do [and possibly you as well] is think about all of those chums I've had who have been dirt napping for years, and some decades. Good men all. I'm one lucky SOB! Being born in America. Living long enuf to see grannies, yes one lucky SOB. The good Lord owes me nothing, and I thank God for every sunrise and sunset.

#15
Most of the women who want entry to combat arms are officers that want their ticket punched so they can advance into the General ranks. They don't have to hump ammo, pack an M-60 up a hill on a dirt trail, ect. I suspect most of them wouldn't care about the troops they would command or they wouldn't be pushing this. Especially any talk about reduction in standards.

#17
SHTF wid either or both CHINA + IRAN by this Summer 2013 - does America = Amerikka wants to see its women in intensive naval combat agz China, or in intensive ground combat agz Iran in the harsh desert or agz China in the high hills or ridges of Korea or perhaps Taiwan, Japan.

Lest we fergit, China has a histoire' of maasacring post-battle survivors whom attempt to surrender even under the auspices of International law = Geneva Convention - as for Iran, only God = Allan knows what will happen to US Female Soldiers captured in combat or other by Muslim Soldats or other Proxy.

LET US ALSO NOT FERGIT THAT A US WAR AGZ CHINA ANDOR IRAN HAS A GOOD-TO-HIGH CHANCE OF GOING NUCLEAR = NUCLEAR-POSSIBLE. China has ICBMS that CAN strike CONUS or Japan or any ASEAN; while defensive or active-defense minded Iran may use any primitive NucBombs or "Dirty Nukes-WMDS" it has dev'd agz established US Army-Marine beachheads or airheads, fronts + airfields + staging areas, etc. on Iranian soil or pro-US allied targets around the Persian Gulf.

[Dawn] RUMOURS of delayed elections, tales of corruption at the highest levels of government, pre-poll deal-making, judiciary-executive tussles -- these stories dominate public discourse for days at a stretch and trigger hectic activity within the government and opposition. When a bomb kills Shia worshippers, Ahmadi graves are desecrated, a journalist dies in mysterious circumstances, a Baloch activist disappears or a mentally ill person is charged with blasphemy, the news is quickly forgotten and the state barely responds. In rare instances, such as in the cases of Malala Yousufzai and Rimsha Masih in which children were involved, the story might linger for longer, prompting protests and some state action. More often, though, as is apparent from the Pakistain section of Human Rights Watch's... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... World Report 2013, human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... abuses are simply treated as a routine feature of Pak life.

It is not clear that the state is really as complicit in some of these atrocities, particularly those carried out by violent religious myrmidons, as the human rights watchdog claims. What cannot be argued with, though, is the claim that the state is not doing enough to prevent them. Attacks on Shias, for example, have become increasingly frequent and predictable in several parts of the country. But as far as is publicly known, no one has been successfully held to account, sending a signal to those who want to attack other people for their religious beliefs that in Pakistain this crime can be carried out with impunity. The report also talks about extrajudicial detention and killings and drone attacks, pointing to one of the most complicated moral questions Pakistain faces today: in the unique security situation we are in, how do we combat those who violate human rights without violating theirs? How do we balance the need to uphold strict standards of justice with the need to prevent further attacks on the state and civilians?

Distracted by politics, afraid of offending right-wing sentiments and lacking the will to overhaul our security strategy and tactics, the state continues to ignore its responsibility to protect each citizen's right to life, freedom and justice.

A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.